Utilities are increasingly using networked meters to reduce meter-reading costs and to monitor user consumption in real-time. Networking applications such as power line communications (PLC) typically use the TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol) stack architecture to transmit and receive information from the networked meters. However, the physical media over which the PLC communications are conducted is not always available and/or subject to degradation, which interrupts the ability of a utility to reliably obtain information from the networked meters.